South African Class 33-000
No. 33-025 at Bellville Loco, 28 March 2009
Type and origin Power type Diesel-electric Designer General Electric Builder General Electric Serial number 35457-35521 Model GE U20C Build date 1965-1966 Total produced 65
Specifications Configuration: ​  • AAR C-C  • UIC Co'Co'  • Commonwealth Co+Co Gauge 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) Cape gauge Wheel diameter 915 mm (36.0 in) Wheelbase 12,243 mm (40 ft 2.0 in) ​  • Bogie 3,505 mm (11 ft 6.0 in) Pivot centres 9,017 mm (29 ft 7.0 in) Wheel spacing (Asymmetrical) 1-2: 1,594 mm (5 ft 2.8 in) 2-3: 1,911 mm (6 ft 3.2 in) Length: ​  • Over couplers 16,866 mm (55 ft 4.0 in) Width 2,756 mm (9 ft 0.5 in) Height 3,931 mm (12 ft 10.8 in) Axle load 15,749 kg (34,721 lb) Loco weight 94,494 kg (208,324 lb) max Fuel type Diesel Fuel capacity 3,600 litres (790 imp gal) Prime mover GE 7FDL-12 RPM range 400-1,000 ​  • RPM low idle 400  • Maximum RPM 1000 Engine type 4 stroke diesel Aspiration C-B ET13 turbocharger Generator DC 10 pole GE 5GT-581C9 Traction motors Six GE 5GE-761A6 DC 4 pole ​  • Rating 1 hour 635A  • Continuous 620A @ 20 km/h (12 mph) Cylinders V12 Gear ratio 92:19 MU working 4 maximum Loco brake 28-LV-1 with vigilance control Train brakes Westinghouse 6CDX4UC compressor/exhauster Air tank cap. 700 litres (150 imp gal) Compressor 0.029 m3/s (1.0 cu ft/s) Exhauster 0.116 m3/s (4.1 cu ft/s) Couplers AAR knuckle (SASKOP DS)
Performance figures Maximum speed 100 km/h (62 mph) Power output: ​  • Starting 1,605 kW (2,152 hp)  • Continuous 1,490 kW (2,000 hp) Tractive effort: ​  • Starting 223 kN (50,000 lbf) @ 25% adhesion  • Continuous 178 kN (40,000 lbf) @ 24 km/h (15 mph) Factor of adh.: ​  • Starting 25%  • Continuous 20% Brakeforce 70% ratio @ 345 kPa (50.0 psi) Dynamic brake peak effort 173 kN (39,000 lbf) @ 26 km/h (16 mph)
Career Operators South African Railways Spoornet Spoornet Traction Transnet Freight Rail COMILOG, Gabon Sudan Railways Zambia Railways TransNamib Class Class 33-000 Number in class 65 Numbers 33-001 to 33-065 Nicknames Bosvark Delivered 1965-1966 First run 1965

The South African Railways Class 33-000 of 1965 was a diesel-electric locomotive.

In 1965 and 1966, the South African Railways placed sixty-five Class 33-000 General Electric type U20C diesel-electric locomotives in service.^[1]

Manufacturer

The South African Class 33-000 type GE U20C diesel-electric locomotive was designed and built for the South African Railways (SAR) by General Electric (GE) and imported. Sixty-five of these locomotives were delivered between June 1965 and January 1966, numbered in the range from 33-001 to 33-065.^[1][2]

Class 33 series

The Class 33 family consisted of three series, the GE-built Classes 33-000 and 33-400 and the General Motors Electro-Motive Division-built Class 33-200. Both manufacturers also produced locomotives for the subsequent SAR Classes 34, 35 and 36.^[3]

The two GE-built Classes were virtually identical in appearance, but could be distinguished from each other by some ventilation openings on their bodywork.

• The Class 33-000 had press-formed louvre openings in both short hood doors on the right-hand side of the nose, while the Class 33-400 had no opening in either of these doors.
• Just to the rear of the cab on both sides of the long hood and more or less in line with the cab windows, both models had panels with three ventilation openings. These had two horizontal bars in each opening on the Class 33-000 and press-formed louvre openings on the 33-400.

These doors and panels could get swapped between models and sometimes did, either as replacement for damaged items or by chance during overhauls.

Service

In South Africa

The Class 33-000 was initially used to dieselise the Cape Midland region. When the Class 34-000 entered service in 1971, the Class 33-000 locomotives were relocated to Transvaal and some later to the Cape Western system.^[3]

In the SAR era, the inner parts of cabside locomotive number plates were often unofficially painted in various colours to identify the depot to which the locomotive was allocated. Judging from the flaked paint on the plate in the picture alongside, no. 33-014 saw service in several regions over the years.^[1]

Most of these locomotives survived in mainline and branch line service well into the twenty-first century, for example on the lines from De Aar to Upington and on the branch line from Worcester to Voorbaai. Some were later employed as heavy shunting engines to assemble or unload iron ore trains at the Sishen-Saldanha iron ore line's terminals, until the arrival of the Class 43-000 on that line in 2011 made more GE-built Class 34 locomotives available for this task.

Withdrawal

SCTP logo

Although some of the locomotives had been sold to other operators over the years, most of the class remained in South African service for more than fifty years. During 2015, when sufficient numbers of new GE-designed Class 43-000 locomotives had entered service, several of the remaining Class 33-000 units were sold to, amongst others, TransNamib in Namibia and the Congolese Company for Transportation and Ports (SCTP, formerly Onatra) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Most of these locomotives were refurbished in South Africa prior to being delivered to their new owners.

Liveries

The class 33-000 were delivered in the new Gulf Red livery with yellow side-stripes on the long hood, a yellow V on each end, signal red buffer beams and unpainted steel cowcatchers. Most of them wore this livery throughout their SAR service life. In the Spoornet era, some of those leased to other countries were painted in a maroon livery with yellow and blue chevron buffer beams and inscribed "Spoornet Traction" on the long hood sides.^[6]

Works numbers

The Class 33-000 builder's works numbers, service in the Zambia Railways leasing pool and known eventual disposition are listed in the table.^[5]

Illustration

• 
  No. 33-007 in South African Railways livery at Bellville Loco Depot, Cape Town, 27 June 2009
• 
  No. 33-030 in Spoornet Traction livery, Bellville Loco Depot, Cape Town, 24 May 2009
• 
  No. 33-030 in TransNamib livery and numbered 030, De Aar, Northern Cape, 9 October 2015
• 
  Class 33-000 no. 1434, sold to the Congolese SCTP, at Koedoespoort, 29 September 2015

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to South African Class 33-000.